In Japan, stretched hospitals turning away coronavirus cases over medical, financial risks

Accepting Covid-19 patients carries significant risks; data shows 931 patients were rejected by Tokyo hospitals or had to wait for emergency rooms

Japanese hospitals are also dealing with a shortage of protective gear and medical equipment

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The intensive care unit at a Japanese hospital. Many facilities are reluctant to admit coronavirus patients as they deal with a surge in cases. Photo: Kyodo

Published: 1:46pm, 28 Apr 2020Updated: 1:46pm, 28 Apr 2020

At any given time, seven out of eight beds in the intensive care unit of St Luke’s International Hospital in Tokyo are taken up by critically ill coronavirus patients.

“If we max out eight beds we can’t place patients who suddenly take a turn for the worse, so we always keep one bed open,” said Fumie Sakamoto, who manages the 500-room hospital’s infection control division.

The extra ICU bed also needs to stay open for any coronavirus patients who could arrive at any hour of the day in an ambulance, Sakamoto said. “Our ICU is now really only for Covid patients.”

Fumie Sakamoto, a nurse at St Luke's International Hospital in Tokyo. Photo: Reuters

As the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Japan tops 12,000, hospitals like St Luke’s are saving their limited ICU capacity for an increasing number of critically ill patients and improvising makeshift gear to protect frontline medical staff.

With some hospitals reluctant to take in Covid-19 patients, the most critical cases are transferred to willing hospitals like St Luke’s, which are already inundated.

St Luke’s has a special designation as a facility for infectious diseases and so receives government subsidies to take in infectious cases.